The only thing that would have restored
men to convalescence in their condition would have been nursing and the
comforts of hospital treatment, not a resort to human flesh."
Apart from these objections, of which the reader is only forewarned,
the importance of the results achieved by Lieutenant Schwatka's
expedition has not been gainsaid by any one possessing the least
acquaintance with Arctic matters. It made the largest sledge journey on
record, having been absent from its base of supplies for eleven months
and twenty days, and having traversed 2,819 geographical, or 3,251
statute miles. It was the first expedition which relied for its own
subsistence and for the subsistence of its dogs on the game which it
found in the locality. It was the first expedition in which the white
men of the party voluntarily assumed the same diet as the natives. It
was the first expedition which established beyond a doubt the loss of
the Franklin records. McClintock recorded an opinion that they had
perished: Schwatka recorded it as a fact.
The success of this latest Arctic journey has been attributed to small,
as well as to greater causes. The advantages of summer exploration were
manifest. The Esquimaux of the party gave invaluable aid, building
snow-huts with the skill to which none but natives attain, coating the
sledge-runners with ice according to a method which only natives
understand, and by their good offices enabling the expedition to hold
communication and have dealings with the wild tribes with whom they
came in contact.
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